THE ONGOING EFFECT OF TERRORISM ON THE HOSPITALITY & TOURISM INDUSTRY

The purpose of this research paper was to analyze the phenomenon of terrorist acts, and various strategies used to address the effect on tourism and the hospitality industry. The problem with terrorism in society is that terrorism strikes fear in everyone that is directly and indirectly involved with occurrences of terrorist acts. Terrorism is a prevalent issue in society and is evolving due to the increased number of terrorist groups and the amount of resources they are able to obtain. A prime example of the prevalence of terrorism is the suicide bombing that took place in Russia at Domodedovo Airport on January 24th, 2011. Even though there are several research articles, theses and textbooks that address the issue of terrorism there is limited research that analyzes its effect on tourism. Some hospitality literature has a brief focus on its effect on tourism but is very broad and vague. These are both from primary and secondary sources. The specific topics of interest that will be analyzed are whether the severity or frequency of terrorist acts has a larger impact on tourists‟ decision to travel or not; and how companies or government entities install a plan of action to handle a crisis of this sort in the future. Another topic is how the media positively and negatively assists during this time of uncertainty. This study is also aimed to benefit the reader or researcher that comes across this paper by giving them knowledge on motivations behind terrorism.